This webinar presents a simple yet accurate approach to study pathway- and disease-focused mRNA and long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) expression profiling using real-time PCR. Learn about the stringent performance standards built into the technology to ensure sensitivity, specificity, reproducibility and reliability. These advantages and features will be presented using application-based examples.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies with a poor prognosis. Understanding the mechanisms of tumor progression is therefore essential. Liquid biopsies are non-invasive methods for diagnostics to detect early stage cancer resulting in more successful treatment. One liquid biopsy technique is the detection of RNA from tumor- derived exosomes. These exosomes participate in generating a metastatic niche. Using QIAGEN Bioinformatics solutions with a publicly available dataset, we have examined the transcriptome of Kupffer cells after uptake of pancreatic tumor-derived exosomes that induce the formation of a liver metastatic niche and analyzed the pathways and biological processes involved in this process.

Fusion genes are hybrid genes formed by the fusion of two separate genes. Translocation, interstitial deletion and chromosomal inversions are some of the genetic events that can lead to the formation of fusion genes.

The occurrence of fusion genes and its implications in cancer have already been known, but the emergence of NGS technology - especially RNA sequencing - offers the potential to detect novel gene fusions.

In this webinar, Dr. Raed Samara will cover:

Fusion genes: What they are and a historical perspective

Fusion gene detection: The current status

RNA sequencing vs. digital RNA sequencing

How to detect and accurately quantify novel fusion genes in your sample

Ever struggled with primer problems and annealing conditions? Ever wondered why your PCR didn’t work out quite right? Then join this webinar that is a beginner’s guide on end-point PCR with tips and tricks you won’t find in the textbooks. At the end we also provide the link to download the updated PCR guide. Some of the highlights you will see:

Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) have been extensively explored as circulating biomarkers in various cancers. Due to their rarity, heterogeneity and stem cell-like properties, detecting and profiling CTCs from blood samples is very challenging. In this webinar, Dr. Siegfried Hauch will introduce the well-known AdnaTests, which uses the Combination of Combinations Principle (COCP) to enable enriching and detecting CTCs in whole blood with high specificity and sensitivity, and how to overcome challenges in CTC enrichment and detection. The AdnaTests combine an immunomagnetic capturing method that increases purity, and is followed by molecular profiling of the captured CTCs. In addition, leukocyte contamination is another issue in CTCs detection and may lead to false positive results due to illegitimate expression of target genes or false interpretation. The AdnaWash is developed to reduce leukocyte contamination to such a level that whole gene panels can be analyzed while maintaining the required specificity and sensitivity.

Rapidly developing next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies provide highly sensitive methods for discovering and characterizing the genetic information of a variety of samples. However, DNA samples are often limited in quantity, as well as compromised in quality. Such samples are not suitable for standard NGS library construction methods, which commonly require hundreds of nanograms of high-quality DNA. Examples of such challenging samples include circulating DNA laser capture microdissection formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples, ancient DNA and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) samples.

In this webinar, we describe the measures that should be taken into consideration while sequencing such challenging samples. We will also present methods that can be used to optimize library construction to efficiently convert small amounts of DNA samples into high-quality sequencing libraries.